J.W. Waterhouse

Great Victorian Pictures - their paths to fame

A touring exhibition organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain.

From the Exhibition Catalogue Preface:
"Victorian painting has enjoyed and suffered each extreme of public and critical response. In the few years between Victoria's death and the First World War, the English avant-garde, led by Roger Fry, had turned their backs on the 'subject' pictures of nineteenth century Britain. Instead they looked to Cézanne and the revolution which he and other Post-Impressionists had brought to French painting. 'Significant form' -- the exploration of pure line, shape and colour -- became the irresistible order of the day and Victorian pictures were removed from gallery walls to become the unwieldy storage problems of museum curators throughout the country. Only the Pre-Raphaelites, themselves remote from the mainstream of Victorian art, could survive the welter of critical abuse and even they were not unscathed.

Yet throughout this century Victorian pictures have retained the affection of a large section of the public and, as concern has mounted about the increasingly isolated position of contemporary art, so historians and critics have begun to look again at the art of this unique period in which critically acclaimed pictures were genuinely popular.

'To move the heart of the million' was not always the fanciful ambition of a Victorian artist. The present exhibition brings together many of the pictures which achieved that goal and examines the reasons behind their success."
(Joanna Drew, Michael Harrison, Rosemary Treble, Judith Bronkhurst).

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